[Program Note: No fresh column today, sorry. Instead, here is an article I wrote back at the beginning of February, which was the starting point for the column I wrote yesterday. If this doesn't interest you, there's a fascinating article over at Salon about our real first gay president, James Buchanan. It's an interesting read, but doesn't really point out one aspect of the situation. Much like J.F.K.'s sex life was largely ignored by the press of his day, Buchanan's sex life was also ignored back in the 1800s. The media back then actually enjoyed printing sex scandals, but homosexuality was still a big taboo -- so Buchanan got a pass from the press. Washington gossip certainly knew all about Buchanan and his partner (calling them "Aunt Fancy" and "Miss Nancy"), but this never made it into the newspapers. So if the article below doesn't interest you, I encourage you to head over and learn some history at Salon.]

This column originally ran on February 2, 2012.

Every so often I write an article which is nothing more than the sheerest of speculation, based not on any solid factual foundation but rather on the shifting undercurrents and vagaries of the American political consciousness. Of course, when I do indulge the urge to take such a stab in the dark, I like to identify it as such beforehand, out of respect for my readers' intelligence, and my own sense of journalistic ethics. This is one of those articles -- you have been warned.

The thought which keeps flitting through my mind is whether the Republicans are going to face their own "PUMA" problem this fall. For those who don't remember the term from 2008, PUMA stood for "Party Unity, My Ass!" and was the rallying cry of the non-existent hordes of pro-Hillary Democrats who were reportedly going to cause major disruption at the Democratic National Convention, and then throw the election to John McCain in the fall.

As you may recall, neither event actually took place. Which makes building a case for a similar thing happening on the Republican side pretty tough to do, I fully admit. But it's not entirely beyond the range of possibility, so here goes.

The Republican Party's internal factional divisions have seldom been as clearly on display as they have been this election cycle. This year is the first presidential election that the Tea Party Republicans have participated in, although this may not be anything new -- these folks have been around for a while, and they've usually voted Republican, but they haven't been as well-organized in the past (and they haven't had a catchy banner to march under until now). Having said all of that, one of the big stories the mainstream media has been ignoring has been the fact that the Tea Partiers are showing signs of what I have long called both their biggest strength and their biggest weakness -- the fact that they are not a centrally-run organization by any stretch of the imagination. The Tea Partiers have not coalesced around a single candidate, which is diminishing their faction's relative importance in the Republican Party as a direct result. This, to put it mildly, may lead to a bit of disillusionment later on, especially if the party nominates Mitt Romney.

The other (and lesser) faction in the Republican ranks is the libertarian wing of the party. Usually consigned to "fringe" status by Republican establishment types, they are making the strongest showing they have ever made behind Ron Paul this year. Paul has regularly been getting votes at roughly twice the rate he did in 2008. He's still not exactly a frontrunner, but he is managing to get into the double digits (something he struggled to do previously). Ominously (for Republicans), Paul has not ruled out a third-party run this year -- even more ominously since 2012 is going to be his political swansong (he's not running to retain his House seat). The Republican establishment has convinced itself that he won't actually make a third-party bid, "so he won't tarnish his son's chances within the Republican Party," but I'm not so sure about that.

Whether Paul bolts the Republican Party or not, though, there are going to be a lot of disappointed Paulites when Mitt Romney sews up the nomination. Very disappointed, if not downright disillusioned. Add to this the crowds of Republican rank-and-file voters who have been willing to follow anybody not named Mitt Romney this year (anybody -- even the likes of Donald Trump or Rick Perry), and it could indeed make for a large part of the Republican electorate which is extremely disappointed with their own nominee.

It's fairly easy to imagine Ron Paul's followers, in particular, picking up the "Party Unity My Ass!" banner and marching under it. It's not all that much harder to picture a few Gingrich supporters and Tea Partiers doing so, as well. The Republican Party, in this scenario, would face their own "enthusiasm gap" come the fall. Even before then, their convention might be a lot more interesting than normal years, should a PUMA faction show up and try to steal the show.

Of course -- once again -- this did not actually happen in 2008 on the Democratic side. The anti-Obama Democratic protest failed to materialize, even after tons of hype in the media urged them on. In fact, the most emotional moment of the convention (for me, at least) was when a surprise was engineered behind the scenes during the delegate counting. Traditionally, states are polled for their delegate counts alphabetically, but when the count is about to go over the "magic number" which secures the nomination, the order defers to the candidates' home state (so the home team can be the ones who can claim "we nominated our hometown candidate!"). But when the Democrats got close to the winning amount of delegates, the order was (as usual) passed over to the state of Illinois -- but then, in a surprise move, Illinois proceeded to pass the order right on to New York. From the floor of the convention, the leader of the New York delegation then passed on the chance to make the official announcement himself, and handed the microphone over to none other than Hillary Clinton -- sitting senator from New York -- who announced that New York's delegate total would ensure Barack Obama's nomination. Pandemonium ensued, but in a good way. The rift was healed. Tears of joy were shed. The word PUMA was heard no more. The party -- PUMAs notwithstanding -- was indeed united around their nominee.

Something similar could indeed happen at the Republican shindig this year. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich (and Rick Santorum and all the other wannabes) could be included in some symbolic and moving gesture which ties the Republican Party together in its fear and loathing of Barack Obama. That's not entirely hyperbole, either -- if anything can unify the fractious Republicans right now, it is the current occupant of the Oval Office. This is actually the safe bet -- that Republicans will put aside their differences over the relative strengths and weaknesses of Mitt Romney in order to speak with one clear voice in the fall elections.

It's probably just a punditary daydream, in other words, to imagine the Paulites breaking with the Republican Party in any sort of meaningful way this summer. It's even harder to imagine any sort of Tea Party revolt from the chosen standardbearer. For all Newt Gingrich's bluster, he'll likely drop out of the race long before the convention, which will give the party time to reconcile before they're on center stage.

But still... but still... I can't help wondering whether the term PUMA will enter into the political dialog from the Republican side this year. Rampant speculation? Sure. Lefty pipe dream? Maybe. Will PUMAs be stalking the Republicans this summer and fall? We'll just have to wait and see, now won't we?

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant